Family Councils / Consigli / Seggia / Elders / Inner Circle

[Angelo Santino]

This is not about the specific position of Consigliere. This is a relatively new discovery/rediscovery, credit goes to B.

Out of curiosity, which families do we have evidence for having both a consiglio/seggia body and an official Consigliere position? In these cases, I'm assuming that the Consigliere also sat on the consiglio?

- Milwaukee definitely did according to Maniaci. He was the one who originally called all of this to my attention and sure enough other examples of this formal consiglio started to pop up all over the 1920s-1960s.

- Antonino Calderone in Catania referred to those on the consiglio as "consiglieri" (plural) and said it included the administration and captains. He says the family also had an official consigliere.

- The St. Louis source said John Ferrara had been one of the "policy makers" on the "council table" and he was later identified as the official consigliere by other sources, so there may have been overlap in him having that position and sitting on the council. That source said the St. Louis "council table" would meet at the boss's funeral parlor after funerals to avoid LE scrutiny.

- Looks like Cavita's Rockford example had the official consigliere also sitting on their "inner ring" which appears to be their consiglio.

- San Francisco had an official consigliere ID'd by Lima during the 1920s, near the time Gentile said they had a consiglio, so I assume there was overlap.

Other notes:

- The FBI believed the Detroit family had a boss, underboss, and then listed three "consiglieri" (plural). They didn't have a member source who could clarify all of the specifics during that time (that I know of), but again it totaled five. I've seen descriptions of Detroit having something like a council/panel beyond the normal administration who dictated policy, which would be consistent with a consiglio. I thought Detroit also had an official consigliere, maybe one of the "consiglieri", though I'm not sure. Maybe someone can clarify.

- I'm almost certain this is what the KC informant referred to as "the Men at the Bakery". He said this was a group of senior figures in the Kansas City mafia who Nick Civella would consult with to dictate policy and make decisions. Civella is alternately referred to as reporting to this group as well as having them "under" him. This would be consistent with a consiglio, which was not subservient to the boss but somewhat horizontal to his leadership. The description of this KC group being a group of elder members who met at the bakery and helped the boss dictate policy fits with other descriptions of the consiglio. Makes sense given St. Louis and other midwest families had it.

- San Jose's council/consiglio had a boss, underboss, two "consiglieri" (plural), and a captain.

- Not much on Pittsburgh, only that Nick Gentile describes contacting the consiglio when he arrived there. In Pittston, a group of members sat on a trial for a member that closely resembled the set-up of a simila trial the San Jose council presided over.

- Calderone said it never included more than one or two captains even if the family has more captains than that. This is very interesting because the US families we know of only included one or two captains at most, though in some cases those were the only captains they had.

- The capo dei capi also presided over the Grand Council / Consiglio Supremo which appears to have had the same function as an individual family's consiglio, but on a national level. This is mentioned in both the Giuseppe Morello letters and in Gentile's memoir. The traditional mafia often has an "as above, so below" sort of approach.

This could/should really be its own thread, but it is relevant to Tampa since it looks like they used it as well.

[Angelo Santino]

Evidence for existence:
Detroit - 1963 - 2000's
Tampa - 1963, and something in 1990
Rockford - 1960's
St. Louis - 1960's
San Francisco - 1960's
San Jose - 1960's
Pittston - 1960's.
Kansas City - ?

I don't think we know why some families had them and some didn't. These families above were mostly homogeneous - Terrasinese, Montedorese etc, but if that mattered it still doesn't explain why the Bonannos didn't have such a thing. No evidence for the DeCavalcante's either. Cleveland, as per Lonardo, made no mention of any system like this, I did suspect that perhaps Frank Milano and Al Polizzi might have had a similar set up but there's no evidence and both men were out of Cleveland after a certain point. Detroit had it in place well into the 2000's, Dominic Bommarito and Jojo Ruggirello (from memory). Interestingly, Jack Tocco demoted his under and consig and installed these guys into the slots, given all three men's advanced ages (80+) I suspect this was Jack's way of clearing the air for his successor-in-waiting Jack Giacalone who was Street boss.

Regarding Philadelphia, like I said, this is a new concept for me, but no informants have mentioned seggia that contains two veteran members with the admin making decisions on protocol, member trials etc. Although there's a tangled cord of underbosses and consiglieri at the same time, similar to the DeCav's having two unders if that info is correct.

[Pogo The Clown]

I really doubt Detroit was that overly structured into the 2000s. I don't think they even had a Consigliere by the 1980s. There are charts from 1984, 1987 and 1990 that don't list one. I don't think the big 1996 indictment mentioned one either.


Pogo

[B.]

I have little insight into Detroit from any period, let alone the 2000s, though I don't think we should think of the consiglio as part of the "structure" necessarily. I don't think it is a coincidence that the consiglio was overlooked when most member sources described the structure / hierarchy of these organizations, as the consiglio was independent of official hierarchical titles even though it was a formal council that included mostly members with official leadership positions. That it included soldiers on occasion as well says a lot, too.

The official consigliere (or acting for that matter -- just differentiating it from those on the consiglio) is commonly described as not being part of the boss->underboss->capodecina->soldier pyramid structure, but rather on its own with its own range of power/influence within the membership (hence it being an elected position, not appointed). Magaddino told Bonanno members he didn't allow a consigliere for this reason (though I'd be curious if Buffalo had a consiglio). I believe the consiglio was the same, in that it wasn't part of what we typically think of as the "structure" we see on charts, but was instead "inside" or "around" the structure but still a formalized body if that makes sense. It might be easier to think of the consiglio as a process rather than a position in the structure.

A couple of the seggia meetings were recorded by the FBI in Milwaukee after Frank Balistrieri took over and on at least one of these it degenerated into a heated argument between Balistrieri and others on the council. Maniaci said Balistrieri stopped holding the council meetings. He was by all accounts a despotic personality so it makes sense that this idea of a ruling body who ran horizontal to the boss would be a problem to someone like him.

I don't think it's a coincidence that we see these councils fade away in most families by the 1960s as even the smaller Sicilian-centric families became Americanized and/or dwindled away. Though we can be sure the early mafia was filled with its own tyrants, they at least went through the motions of being elected rappresentanti, but as families became more Americanized we see the idea (and the word itself) of "the boss" become more common. As we learn more about the early US and Sicilian mafia, though, we see that the mafia had systems in place to balance the boss's power:

- The official consigliere was supposed to be a counterpoint to the boss's power and served as an independent representative of the membership.
- The consiglio within a family could make or heavily influence administrative decisions within the organization that we would otherwise assume belonged exclusively to the boss and underboss.
- Even the boss of bosses, thought of in pop-culture as a micro-managing tyrant, had a Grand Council that appears to have served a similar purpose as a family consiglio but on a national level:

Chilanti: And what about the Consiglio of the Capi?
Gentile: They speak for the Capo dei Capi and address the Assemblea.

I am sure these consiglio (whether within an individual family or the national Consiglio Supremo) were prone to manipulation by the rappresentanti. However the examples we have of this council don't suggest that it was just an empty formality but an important part of the process of administering even a small mafia family.

I wonder if New York had this early on? Given it was brought over from Sicily, it seems likely all of the US groups had it at one point but we can be confident it was abandoned in New York much earlier than these midwest, southern, and west coast families who appear to have kept it up through the 1950s and into the 1960s.

[Heathen]

In a book about Nick Civella by FBI agent William Ouseley. Don't know how reliable the info is. He says "The Bakery" was two men, Joe Filardo and Joe Cusumano, that they where some of founders of the family and played a large role behind the scenes, that they helped to make Nick Civella boss. He goes on to say Filardo went with Civella to Apalachin and that they where generally consulted by Civella and had alot of influence.

[chin_gigante]

Reading this thread, my mind went back to something Joseph Valachi testified about. To me, anyway, it reads like the five New York families and the DeCavalcantes shared a council of consiglieri that was separate from the Commission.

The CHAIRMAN. You say now, however, there is a commission. Does it now have a boss of all bosses?
Mr. VALACHI. No, no more boss over all bosses, they have what you call a concerti, a consigia. I will put it to you this way: Charlie Luciano put it into effect, a member of six, to protect the soldiers, because if a lieutenant in the old days had it in for a soldier or he wanted to pick on the soldier, he could make up stories and to protect the soldier they formed what we call the consigio. In the case of soldiers accused of something, the lieutenant or whoever it may be must bring up charges on him.
The CHAIRMAN. That is something that is settled within each family?
Mr. VALACHI. That is right.

[…]

Mr. ADLERMAN. Following this situation where you joined the Genovese family, did Luciano take over as boss?
Mr. VALACHI. Yes, he did.
Mr. ADLERMAN. Did he abolish the boss of bosses system?
Mr. VALACHI. That was abolished. He also put in, you know, a new consiglieri to protect the soldiers.
Mr. ADLERMAN. You mean a group of six men?
Mr. VALACHI. Yes, a group of six.
Mr. ALDERMAN. What was their function?
Mr. VALACHI. For instance, a lieutenant wants to have a soldier killed or something like that in that line, he cannot do it no more. If he has anything he wants to do, anything like that, he must come up and talk to these six and state what he has got, what his reasons before he is able to carry out, which they never did that before.
That is why the soldiers felt that they have a longer life now than ever, which they did.
Mr. ADLERMAN. Was this the result of the fact that there were a great many grudges and feuds going on because of the various killings?
Mr. VALACHI. Actually, it was the result of the way Joe Masseria was working. Now them things I can't tell you, only what I learned from Joe Profaci, like the meeting of Charley Lucky with Joe Masseria. They knew what they were doing at the time. I don't know. But I learned what it was all about. In other words, they were protecting and trying to say for the other soldiers what was happening to them when they were in the Masseria administration.
Mr. ADLERMAN. Did each of the families have a consiglieri?
Mr. VALACHI. Yes, at that time.
Mr. ADLERMAN. How many consiglieri?
Mr. VALACHI. They had six. If they need a decision, then a boss makes seven. It could be any boss to make it seven because six is even. It might be three and three. So there would be no decision. So a boss would sit down.
Mr. ADLERMAN. There were six families, five in New York and one in New Jersey?
Mr. VALACHI. Yes.
Mr. ADLERMAN. Each of those had one consiglieri?
Mr. VALACHI. Yes.
Mr. ADLERMAN. If for any reason a lieutenant, boss or somebody, wished to kill some soldier, they first had to go to the court or the council?
Mr. VALACHI. That is it.
Mr. ADLERMAN. And prefer a charge which the council or consiglieri would hear and make a determination whether the boss or lieutenant was justified in killing the soldier?
Mr. VALACHI. Can I describe something to you?
Mr. ADLERMAN. Would you, please?
(At this point, Senators Curtis and Mundt entered the hearing room.)
Mr. VALACHI. For instance, you take the time when I was in New Jersey when Albert Anastasia sat down. You know what I had in mind. If that had not been settled there that would have gone up to the consiglieri. That was the purpose why Albert was there.
Mr. ADLERMAN. This is the situation you told me about that occurred in 1951 which we have not discussed yet?
Mr. VALACHI. We did discuss it.
Mr. ADLERMAN. We did?
Mr. VALACHI. Sure.
Mr. ADLERMAN. This is the incident where you had the fight with your partner. You had struck your partner physically which was against the rules. You were brought into the council in New Jersey, is that right?
Mr. VALACHI. If he had saw fit and went to the council, we would have gone to the council, but it ended there, it never got up there.
Mr. ADLERMAN. It did not go up to the appeals court?
Mr. VALACHI. I was waiting for that. I don't think they would have saw me any more.
Mr. ADLERMAN. Now, the consiglieri is different from the commission, is that right?
Mr. VALACHI. That is all together.
Mr. ADLERMAN. The commission is the council of the bosses themselves over the whole United States or wherever the families are in the United States?
Mr. VALACHI. Right.
Mr. ADLERMAN. So the council you are discussing now, the consiglieri of six, only affects the New York families and the New Jersey family?
Mr. VALACHI. Right.

[Adam]

I really doubt Detroit was that overly structured into the 2000s. I don't think they even had a Consigliere by the 1980s. There are charts from 1984, 1987 and 1990 that don't list one. I don't think the big 1996 indictment mentioned one either.


Pogo

He's never officially listed that way by the government, but I think a lot of people think of Michael Polizzi as the consigliere for the Detroit family in the 80s and into the 90s. Just because he was a captain, didn't seem to have a crew, and came up with Jack Tocco and Anthony Zerilli. Doesn't mean that he was, but if any of the clearly active top members at the time fits the bill it's him. But Detroit did have a stable of older wiseguys who could fit the bill for during that time.

[scott22]

Detroit LCN consigliere succession:

Angelo "The Chairman" Meli 1931-1936
Giovanni "Papa John" Priziola 1936-1977
Jimmy "The Goon" Quasarano 1977-1981
Michael "Big Mike" Polizzi 1981-1996 (demoted)
Anthony "Tony T" Tocco 1996-2008
Dominick "Uncle Dom" Bommarito 2008-2014
Anthony "Tony Pal" Palazzolo 2014-2019
Pete "Specs" Tocco 2019 - present

"Tony Cigars" Ruggirello was a de facto consigliere for Jackie from 2014-2019 along with Tony Pal & "Jimmy Q" was a de facto consigliere for Black Jack after he got out of prison on his extortion case from the Wisc. cheese company shakedown until he passed in '01 or '02.

Don't really want this to devolve into a "Detroit" debate and with all due respect, but to think there was no consigliere in the Tocco-Zerilli crime family from the 1980s forward is utterly ridiculous and demonstrates zero understanding of the way this organization & its traditional leadership operates/has operated.

SMB

[Pogo The Clown]

There are charts from 1984, 1987 and 1990 that list Mike Polizzi as a Captain. No Consigliere was listed on any of them. In 1996 Tony Tocco was indicted as a Captain. This is not fantasy family where we get to plug guys into the spots we think they should be in.


Pogo

[Angelo Santino]

Detroit LCN consigliere succession:

Angelo "The Chairman" Meli 1931-1936
Giovanni "Papa John" Priziola 1936-1977
Jimmy "The Goon" Quasarano 1977-1981
Michael "Big Mike" Polizzi 1981-1996 (demoted)
Anthony "Tony T" Tocco 1996-2008
Dominick "Uncle Dom" Bommarito 2008-2014
Anthony "Tony Pal" Palazzolo 2014-2019
Pete "Specs" Tocco 2019 - present

"Tony Cigars" Ruggirello was a de facto consigliere for Jackie from 2014-2019 along with Tony Pal & "Jimmy Q" was a de facto consigliere for Black Jack after he got out of prison on his extortion case from the Wisc. cheese company shakedown until he passed in '01 or '02.

Don't really want this to devolve into a "Detroit" debate and with all due respect, but to think there was no consigliere in the Tocco-Zerilli crime family from the 1980s forward is utterly ridiculous and demonstrates zero understanding of the way this organization & its traditional leadership operates/has operated.

SMB

Thanks for chiming in. Your input is appreciated (except for maybe by 2 of us. )

What are your thoughts on this whole Consiglio thing? Black Bill and Pete Licavoli sat on it in the 60's. Dom Bom and a Ruggirello held it into the 2010's. We appreciate any further input from what you'd ID'd as Councilor Emeritus.

PS: Please stay involved around here. Sometimes the loudest voices doesn't represent the majority... And you've caught so much shit on these forums I completely understand why you hold a "fuck it" mentality. Disagreements are fine but insinuating that you're lying to inflate shit is offensive and I'd say fuck it too. But there's more of us that want to pick your brain and/or have a debate with you that isn't a steamroll. We've had 'disagreements' but it was never confrontational, always from a place of respect which leads to a deeper understanding of the subject and that's the way things outta be. I'd like to get you on the phone with B. once he gets done watching your Detroit documentary if you'd be ok with that.

Scott, Please stick around. You're helping us, not the other way around.

[Angelo Santino]

Detroit LCN consigliere succession:

Angelo "The Chairman" Meli 1931-1936
Giovanni "Papa John" Priziola 1936-1977
Jimmy "The Goon" Quasarano 1977-1981
Michael "Big Mike" Polizzi 1981-1996 (demoted)
Anthony "Tony T" Tocco 1996-2008
Dominick "Uncle Dom" Bommarito 2008-2014
Anthony "Tony Pal" Palazzolo 2014-2019
Pete "Specs" Tocco 2019 - present

"Tony Cigars" Ruggirello was a de facto consigliere for Jackie from 2014-2019 along with Tony Pal & "Jimmy Q" was a de facto consigliere for Black Jack after he got out of prison on his extortion case from the Wisc. cheese company shakedown until he passed in '01 or '02.

Don't really want this to devolve into a "Detroit" debate and with all due respect, but to think there was no consigliere in the Tocco-Zerilli crime family from the 1980s forward is utterly ridiculous and demonstrates zero understanding of the way this organization & its traditional leadership operates/has operated.

SMB

Jack Tocco demoted his under and consig and replaced them with two members you listed as "counselor emeritus." Why do you think he did that? Do you think that was a formality clearing the way for Jackie Giacalone to succeed him? By this point Tocco, Ruggirello and Bommarito were all 80+ and would't have been a obstacle for Giacalone. Or maybe Jack Tocco said fuck it in his later years. Your input is appreciated.

[B.]

In a book about Nick Civella by FBI agent William Ouseley. Don't know how reliable the info is. He says "The Bakery" was two men, Joe Filardo and Joe Cusumano, that they where some of founders of the family and played a large role behind the scenes, that they helped to make Nick Civella boss. He goes on to say Filardo went with Civella to Apalachin and that they where generally consulted by Civella and had alot of influence.

He was probably referring to the same source who told the FBI about "the Clique" (the Kansas City family) and said "the men from the Bakery" were a small group within the "Clique" that helped Civella direct things. Filardo and Cusumano have all the markings of "council" members, so if this wasn't a consiglio, I suspect it served a similar role.

It's also important for me not to see everything as the consiglio now that I'm aware of it (i.e. "he was an influential soldier, he must have been on the consiglio!"), but ever since I first noticed it, it is turning up more and more.

Reading this thread, my mind went back to something Joseph Valachi testified about. To me, anyway, it reads like the five New York families and the DeCavalcantes shared a council of consiglieri that was separate from the Commission.

Wow, incredible find. He even calls it the consiglio.

I take back what I said about no evidence of this existing in NYC, but it's especially relevant as it still existed in the 1930s and Valachi doesn't say anything to indicate it stopped existing at the time of his cooperation. He must be wrong about Luciano creating it as we know from other sources it existed in Sicily and the early US. Valachi also believed Maranzano created the positions of underboss, consigliere, and capodecina. I believe these mistakes are because Valachi was inducted during wartime and was reporting direct to Maranzano; he likely didn't have the existing structure and procedures properly explained to him until after the war and may have assumed these structures and processes were new.

It's also relevant because he says it numbered seven men, as they needed an uneven vote. While it tends to be five consiglieri in the smaller families, maybe the size of the NYC families resulted in a slightly bigger consiglio.

The reference to the DeCavalcante family stands out, too. I don't remember anything on the DeCavalcante tapes to indicate they had an active consiglio, but as great as those tapes were, they don't necessarily give us the full picture. It should be noted they had two underbosses at the time... not sure how that would play into a consiglio unless there was some kind of language discrepancy (i.e. council members / consiglieri were called "underbosses" in that family) but that seems unlikely.

[scott22]

Tony Tocco was indicted as a capo in '96 cause he was a capo & Polizzi was consigliere. I can't speak to why Polizzi wasn't listed in the GAMETAX indictment as consigliere, but he was and had been for 15 years. Jack Tocco shelved Polizzi right after the bust because Polizzi's son and Tocco's godson Angelo Polizzi flipped and bumped up his brother Tony to the consigliere post. Tony Giacalone wasn't identified as street boss in GAMETAX either, but he'd been the street boss since 1960. Tony Jack was just identified as a capo, yet was clearly quite a bit more.

Jack demoted Tony Z in '02. I wouldn't necessary frame Jack having "Uncle Dom" Bommarito and "Joe Hooks" Mirabile (brother-in-laws by the way) step away from their administrative jobs in '13/'14 as a "shelving" or demotion. Jack was letting Jackie & Tony Lop structure things for the future the way they wanted. Dom & Joe knew they were just "place holders" when Jack gave them the positions. This wasn't a secret.

"Emeritus" was created for Black Bill Tocco. The rules in Detroit LCN have always been looser and non traditional, more akin to The Outfit than The Five Families. Pete Licavoli was only a capo until '68 (when he became a ceremonial underboss), but he was a "founding father" & had more power & say-so than a capo in the traditional sense. Tony Ruggirello and Jimmy Q are the best examples of that in the Tocco regime. Jackie leaned on Tony Ruggirello in a non-official capacity in the first few years of his reign.

SMB

[scott22]

Detroit LCN underboss succession

Giuseppe "Joe Uno" Zerilli (1931-1936)
Angelo "The Chairman" Meli (1936-1968)
Peter "Horseface Pete" Licavoli (1968-1979)
Anthony "Tony Z" Zerilli (1979-2002)
Vincent "Little Vince" Meli (2002-2004)
Vito "Billy Jack" Giacalone (2004-2010)
Joseph "Joe Hooks" Mirabile (2010-2014)
Anthony "Chicago Tony" LaPiana (2014-present)

SMB

[Pogo The Clown]

Again Polizzi was listed as a Captain by the FBI in 1984, 1987 and 1990. In all three of those charts no Consigliere was listed.


Pogo